Need driver or app to calm down my CPU/Battery

[Jix]

Ok, it's related to ATI Radeon. I read up a bit on all the woes Radeon drivers and Catalysts are causing to Mint 8, but I have a peculiar problem and I'm curious if there's a alternate solution to this mess.

I have a problem with Mint 8 that makes my laptop’s fan constantly run at max speed, even when I turn off all effects and eye-candy. I have the following laptop:

HP Compaq nx9420
Intel Dual Core T2500 Centrino 2.0 Ghz 1000MHz
1 GB RAM
Mobility Radeon x1600 256 MB

Normally I get the same problem in XP, but I can fix it by going to the Catalyst Control Center >> PowerPlay and reducing power preferences to "Optimal Battery Life" (as opposed to "Optimal Performance"). It seems to be a problem with that line of HP laptops because when nx9420 owners don’t do that in XP the CPU is 70-80%c while simply staring at a blank desktop... When I apply the Catalyst changes the CPU goes down to a decent 40-50, and the fan calms down (in XP). So my question is how can I do the same in Mint? I’ve downloaded and tried installing the official AMD Catalyst Linux drivers and obviously it doesn't work...

I've installed the CPU Scaling Monitor application and ran the thing at various conservative settings, turned off all extras but the fan still runs wild. I actually don't care about the graphic drivers. Is there maybe a package, app, applet or divers that can tell the battery to stop tormenting my CPU? I like Mint but that’s the only thing keeping me from making the switch. I don’t want to damage my hardware.

[stevefed5291]

I’ve downloaded and tried installing the official AMD Catalyst Linux drivers and obviously it doesn't work...

ATI cut support for older cards a while back, the x1600 included I believe. There's a legacy driver but it's... bad. Did you try toying around with the settings in menu>preferences>power management? I hate to suggest this, but I had a similar issue with my Mother's laptop, and wound up downgrading to Felicia which can still utilize the older drivers. You might want to give that a go if it's worth it to you.

[Jix]

Ya, I'm not even looking for ati/amd drivers, because I don't think that's the problem. It just so happens Catalyst has that battery option. I'm hoping there might be a package. I'm currently experimenting with whatever looks like it could help. Then when all else fails, I'll try another OS.